VETERAN journalist, award-winning columnist and public commentator, Azu Ishiekwene has written a book on monetising writings for the media, which is set to hit bookshops across the country soon.
The 280-page book, titled, ‘Writing for Media and Monetising It,’ comprises 15 chapters and informative epilogues.
It serves as innovative material and a guide for students, professionals, and scholars of the media who increasingly want roadmaps for navigating the maelstrom that media practice has become.
‘Writing for Media and Monetising It’ reveals how Ishiekwene’s close to four decades of media work and public intellection have earned him a prized bird’ s-eye view and still that depth of gaze, if not some form of omniscience, to observe society keenly and equally calibrate the evolution of the media.
As such, the book chronicles various levels of disruption that have affected media practice, particularly in how they impact and can more saliently enhance practitioners’ livelihoods.
Of necessity, it identifies and seeks to bridge knowledge gaps, towards a renewed engagement with the economics of the media in these times; importantly, how writers and content creators can stay within the cusps of innovation, and thereby keep their work in demand, towards better compensation.
Part autobiographical, part personal reflection on a profession undergoing forceful transfiguration, and part manual for keen media workers or career pilgrims on how to leverage their skills for more worthwhile recompense, Azu’s didactic form of storytelling is masterly in its subject command and projections.
Speaking about what incubated his idea of the book on Monday, the veteran journalist said he wrote the book because he felt the need to give back to the craft that fostered him.
He maintained that the book fills the gap in the shortage of resources required in the field of journalism, especially for young journalists, writers, and content creators.
“The book is a requirement for ‘navigating the exciting maelstrom that the media – and its various iterations or strands of practice – have become.’ I couldn’t agree more.
“Clear, simple and concise writing is a craft. Writing for Media and Monetising It is not only about such writing. It is also about how to get compensation for it.
“The book provides a step-by-step approach, with lots of examples and insights on media law, writing for impact and syndication, generative AI and how to manage feedback and trolls, among other things.
“The unique quality of the book is that it combines the seasons that fostered my career, to borrow from Sonala Olumhense’s blurb, with a narrative of how younger writers can take advantage and be rewarded by evolving trends in the media,” he added.
Ishiekwene stressed that the 15-chapter book draws heavily from interviews with some of the best, from Abimbola Adelakun, Fisayo Soyombo, Ruona Meyer, Farooq Kperogi, Sam Omatseye, Toyosi Ogunseye, to Pulitzer Prize winner Dele Olojede, who gave an interview for the first time in 13 years.
The author is a highly respected and well-read writer in the local and international media, whose over 35-year experience have seen him serve as Editor and Executive Director, Publications, at The PUNCH newspapers, then as Managing Director and Editor-In-Chief of The Interview magazine, is currently the Senior Vice Chairman/Editor-in-Chief at the LEADERSHIP Media Group. A Fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and director of the Dantiye Centre for Leadership and Journalism, he is also the writer of an earlier title, The Trial of Nuhu Ribadu.
Copies of Writing for the Media and Monetising It can presently be pre-ordered from www.azu.media and delivered both locally and internationally, pending its formal presentation later in June.
